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Coronation: From the 8th to the 21st Century. Roy Strong
Читать онлайн.Название Coronation: From the 8th to the 21st Century
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isbn 9780007397129
Автор произведения Roy Strong
Издательство HarperCollins
9 The Mass.
10 At the conclusion comes the promissio regis in the form of the tria praecepta: ‘that the Church of God and all Christian people preserve the peace at all times’, ‘that he forbid rapacity and all iniquities to all degrees’ and, lastly, ‘that in all judgements he enjoin equity and mercy …’
We have no idea when and for whom this ordo was used. The earliest reference to unction being administered is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle quite suddenly under the year 787 when it states that Ecgferth, the son of Offa, King of Mercia, was ‘consecrated king’.17 Presumably this was a means to ensure his succession to the throne. Then follows a complete silence until 4 September 925 when Athelstan was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Athelstan, along with Edward the Elder and Edgar, was one of the three great tenth-century Anglo-Saxon kings. In 937, he would rout an alliance of the Danes and rebel subject princes at the battle of Brunanburh. The location for his Coronation was Kingston upon Thames and it was followed by a great feast:
With festive treat the court abounds; Foams the brisk wine, the hall resounds: The pages run, the servants haste, And food and verse regale the taste. The minstrels sing, the guests commend, While in praise to Christ contend. 18
Kingston first appears in 835 or 836 as a meeting place for Egbert and Coelnorth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edward the Elder, son of Alfred, and likewise a warrior who laid low the Danes, was crowned there in 901. Athelstan’s brother, Edmund, was also crowned at Kingston in 940 and his brother, Eadred, in 946 and Edmund’s son, Eadwig, in 955 or 956.19 Once again we get an unexpected glimpse of what could be the reality of such an occasion. Eadwig is recorded as getting up during the Coronation feast and going to his chamber. Dunstan, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Lichfield were sent to fetch him back. What they saw was the unedifying sight of the new King with two women, Athelgifu and her daughter, Elfgifu, to whom the King was uncanonically married, and the crown, ‘which shone with the various glitter of gold, silver and precious stones’, tossed on to the floor. Unsavoury though the episode was it provides the earliest evidence that we have that the Kings now wore crowns.20
With the mention of Dunstan we can move on to a consideration of that other vexed document, the Second Recension. Everyone agrees that it was used under Dunstan’s aegis for the great Coronation of Edgar in 973 and also that it was still in use in 1101. As it refers to a king crowned ‘of the Angles and the Saxons’ and to the person concerned as a successor to a glorious father, that could only mean Edward the Elder crowned on 8 June 901 or Athelstan, his son, crowned on 4 September 925. That at least provides some options for possible dating. What is also certain is that this ordo represents a revision of the First Recension, bringing it into line with developments on the Continent.21
There are at least five versions of this text, of which the most important is that known as the Claudius Pontifical, which evidence indicates was written for and at Christ Church, Canterbury. The ordo is a fusion of insular with continental elements drawing on the Leofric and Egbert versions of the First Recension and marrying into them items drawn from Hincmar of Reims’ ordo of Metz (869), the West Frankish ordo of c.900 (the Erdmann ordo) and what was called the ordo of Stavelot (the ordo of the Seven Forms). The resulting recension surpasses all of those upon which it was based in terms of clarity, structure and power of expression and language.
Although there are variations between the surviving manuscripts, once again I present the recension as a list, pointing up what had changed. The Second Recension, thanks to the inclusion of rubrics, paints a far fuller picture of the action than the first:
1 The ordo opens with the King discovered amidst his seniores, the ealdormen who have elected him.
2 Two bishops lead the King to the church while the choir chants the anthem, Firmetur manus tua: ‘Let thy hand be strengthened, and thy right hand be exulted …’, invoking the regal qualities of strength, justice, mercy and truth.
3 ‘When the King is come to the church, he shall lie prostrate before the altar: and then shall the hymn Te Deum laudamus be sung to the end.’
4 ‘After which he shall arise from the ground: and the King chosen by the bishops and people shall promise to observe these three things.’ Then follow the tria praecepta as in the First Recension.
5 Prayers follow, including a long one invoking in plenitude biblical precedents, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David and Solomon, as exemplars of truth, mildness, courage, humility and wisdom. It petitions that the King may serve God, walk in the way of justice, and cherish the Church and his people, protecting both from their enemies. It calls for him to triumph over his enemies protected by the helmet of God’s protection and His invincible shield. It asks that the King reign with honour and be anointed with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
6 The anointing, during which is sung in some versions Unxerunt Salomonem (‘Zadok the Priest’) as the anthem and in others a special anthem with the text: ‘O people of England, thou hast not been forgotten in the sight of the Lord: for in thee may the King that rules the English people of God be exulted, may he be anointed with the oil of gladness and confirmed by God’s strength.’
7 Investiture by the bishops with a multiplication of regalia: the ring, the sword, the crown, the sceptre and the rod. Each item is presented with prayers outlining their symbolic significance as I have already described at Edgar’s Coronation. Some versions add to these a red regal mantle, ‘the garment of chiefest honour, the mantle of royal dignity’.
8 A series of blessings calls upon God, the Virgin Mary, the saints and angels to guard and watch over the King.
9 He is then enthroned with the prayer Sta et retine: ‘Stand and hold fast from henceforth that place whereof hitherto thou hast been heir, by the succession of thy forefathers, being now delivered unto thee by the authority of Almighty God, and by the hand of us, and all the bishops and servants of God …’
10 A series of further blessings.
11 The Queen is then consecrated and anointed and ‘she must be adorned with the ring for the integrity of her faith, and with a crown for the glory of eternity’.
12 The Mass.
In what way does this ordo differ from its predecessor? In the first place it is the first one with clear sections: election, oath, consecration, unction, investiture and blessing. In the second, the role of the laity is reduced, the delivery of the regalia no longer being at the hands of both principes and pontifices but of the pontifices only. In short, anything which suggests that power might have been conferred from below has been eliminated. There is no act of allegiance or indeed of acclamation. This is an ordo whose fundamental driving force is theological, represented in the opening act of prostration by the candidate on entering the church. Prostration in early liturgies was an expression beyond that of mere humility, contrition and supplication. What it signalled was an annihilation of the initiate’s former self in preparation for a ‘rebirth’ into a new status. That rebirth was, however, to be conditional upon the promissio regis, now significantly moved to the front from its place in the First Recension at the very end. This new siting had huge constitutional repercussions. In it were spelt out the obligations of late Anglo-Saxon kingship: ‘The duty of a hallowed king is that he judge no man unrighteously, and that he defend and protect widows and orphans and strangers, that he forbid thefts … feed the needy with alms, and have old and wise men for counsellors, and set righteous men for stewards …’22